Mideast talks may go long into the night

July 19, 2000
Web posted at: 12:07 a.m. EDT (0407 GMT)

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CAMP DAVID, Maryland (CNN) -- With one last night of opportunity ahead, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators at Camp David, Maryland, tried to forge an agreement that would bring a large measure of peace to the Middle East.

White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters Tuesday afternoon that U.S. President Bill Clinton's schedule "remains the same; he is scheduled to leave tomorrow morning for Japan" for the meeting of the G-8 industrial powers.

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"There are intense discussions and negotiations going on now between the two parties," Lockhart said. "I think they understand what they're up against, as far as the issues and the timing, and we'll just have to wait and see."

Israeli and Palestinian sources had said earlier Tuesday that nothing less than a full agreement will do.

"There will be no partial agreement," Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Faisal Husseini, the top Palestinian official for Jerusalem affairs, told CNN. "Nothing is agreed to unless everything is agreed to."

Israeli sources were also adamant. "Prime Minister (Ehud) Barak wants the whole cake or nothing," said an Israeli source.

"There is not an open-ended or unlimited amount of time," Lockhart said Tuesday. "People have been ... up most of the night for the last three nights, so you can expect that they're tired. But they're staying at it."

Asked if Clinton was ready for another long night of talks, Lockhart said, "Yes."

Lockhart left open the possibility that the president's schedule could be changed to allow him to remain at Camp David past his predicted 9:30 a.m. Wednesday departure for the economic summit, but said he was aware of no plans to do so.

Asked if the talks were in crisis, Lockhart said, "I wouldn't use that phrase. Obviously, there are very difficult issues in front of them, but the parties are continuing to work at them."

"Both sides came here with a real sense that they wanted to reach an agreement," Lockhart said. "They have spent a lot of time together, they have spent very little time sleeping. There are 52 years of debate behind them, so the atmosphere, at times, has been tense, but they are still working at it."

Lockhart, who has been the primary briefer during White House news conferences at the talks, has spent more than a week declining to answer questions that go to the substance of the talks. He didn't change his position Tuesday afternoon.

Asked if there had been any progress in the talks, he replied, "I think I've managed to avoid trying to characterize on that particular question for eight days now, and I won't start now."

Asked if either side had threatened to walk out, he quipped, "boy, it'd be a long walk. You'd have to go all the way down the mountain ..."

Clinton met Tuesday with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for just over an hour, Lockhart said, and he predicted the president would meet again with both Mideast leaders before the night ended.

A breakthrough in the arduous process seemed unlikely as the clock ticked to Clinton's scheduled departure.

Earlier Tuesday, Palestinian sources told CNN the peace talks had "hit a snag" over the issue of Jerusalem.

Asked whether that was the case, Lockhart said only that the talks were focused on the core issues.

Those issues are the borders of a Palestinian state, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, the fate of Jewish settlements and the future of Jerusalem.

Palestinian sources said that, unless things change on Jerusalem, efforts to reach a full agreement at this summit are over.

But some involved in the process are still hopeful a deal may be struck before the president leaves.

"We want a deal," said National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley on Monday. "They're here. They're engaged. There's no time like the present."

Knesset speaker Avraham Burg said from Jerusalem on Tuesday that he had spoken with Barak by phone, and that the talks had reached "a moment of truth."

"The perfect description of where we are now is the eye of the storm ... so many whirlwinds around, but it's a very quiet moment because it is a moment of truth," the Knesset speaker said. "Now everything is on the table. Now they are touching a lot of sacred issues ... Therefore it's impossible to predict now where the face of the storm is going."

CNN State Department Correspondent Andrea Koppel, CNN Senior White House Correspondent John King, CNN.com Senior Writer KC Wildmoon, CNN.com Writer Jonathan D. Austin and Reuters contributed to this report.

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